As We Have Seen, So We Have Heard
This is really a special moment for me. It has been 16 long months without in person worship. Living in New Jersey, the start of the pandemic was scary. I had just gone on my mid-semester reading week to Asheville and was returning with friends. On the way home we received an email that there would be an extra reading week because school would be moving online. That Sunday, the church I attended and would serve at, began streaming their services. The following week, the week of my 24th birthday, I received a call that Emma would have to find her own way home from her mission’s trip because the South African border had shut down. I’m 25 now, married to my lovely wife, and a graduate of Seminary. I want to acknowledge that this has been a very painful and trying 16 months. The pandemic has tested us, it has forced us to adapt in ways we could not have imagined. We have had much to mourn and our celebrations have been tempered. Today is a new day. We have not yet fully emerged from the pandemic, but the light at the end of the tunnel is getting brighter. I hope that today is a celebration for you as it is for me. It is a privilege not only because I get to worship for the first time in ages, but because I get to do so here with all of you.
As we have heard, so have we seen. As we have heard God in the winds of the valley, so have we seen God in the beauty of mountain tops. As we have heard God professed in this country, so have we seen the hand of God evident in her. This psalm is a dedication to God’s providential hand for the nation of Jerusalem. God is said to be the God above all other God’s, the protector, just, loving, and worthy of praise. For the Israelites, Jerusalem was not merely a city, but it was Mount Zion, the sacred home of God’s presence.
Today is a day in which we reflect on our country. It is our Independence Day. It is the Day in which the 13 colonies stood together against taxation without representation and against foreign occupation. It is the day when a group of ordinary, marginalized people stood up against the world’s greatest military power in Great Britain and said, “we hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal.” This was and remains a profound statement. It is a statement for life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Doubtless, in this statement there was God. There was God in the establishment of a new, free people with a chance to prosper, with a chance to establish a country with greater equity and liberties.
We hold the pride we feel for our country and our home in tension with what we know about history. This Scripture says that kings, armies, and the people are all awe-struck by the glory and strength of their God. Despite Zion’s military prowess, their citadels, turrets, and ramparts, this power pails in comparison with God. The Scripture tells us that God is the Creator, Sustainer, and Redeemer. God is the sure defense and our guide. Knowing the history of Jerusalem, we know that the city was sacked, and the people sent into exile. We know that God was their king until the people called for their own kings. We know that they thought their nation could be godly until it realized too late that they worshipped themselves. They thought their home would endure until time saw them fall privy to complacency and in-fighting. At some point in time, Jerusalem became the object of their worship and the sacred Mount Zion had been replaced.
This is the story of Israel, of Rome, and of the world’s great empires. They rise and they fall. God is the one who endures forever. God is the one who Created this world, who Sustains us, and who Redeems us. It is a sin to place any person, any nation, or anything above God. On this Independence Day we reflect on the beauty around us, the presence of God in this country’s midst, but we do not equate our nation with the Kingdom of God. The Kingdom of God will endure, it will prompt groups of ordinary, marginalized people to seek greater levels of freedom and equity. The Kingdom of God will prompt new understandings of love, order, and beauty. The Kingdom of God pushes us to look beyond the present order an imagine, together, an even better world. The city of God, its refuge and its gospel is larger than a city, state, nation, or even this world. The city of God is our true home full of beauty, wonder, and love. Today we celebrate our Independence Day, but the City of God prompts us to imagine an equitable world full of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
For the past month Emma and I have been on a world tour. We have been to New York, Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Maine, Florida, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin, Minnesota, North Dakota, and finally arrived here in Montana. What I have seen, what Emma and I have seen is nothing short of the glory of God in this land. On a fog filled day in Maine, we looked out from a peak into the gray void. I imagined an America where Conservatives and Progressives could once again find the words to speak. On a sunny day in Florida, we jumped into the ocean and followed the playful rhythm of waves crashing. I imagined a nation where everyone would have the luxury of a playful spirit. On hot Michigan summer days, we experienced the love of friends and family at the sunset on a lake. I imagined a world where no one would go to sleep hungry. In New Jersey we heard for the last time the droning of cicadas who ascend from the ground once every seventeen years. I imagined a world in seventeen years where cicadas could emerge to a world that has made conservation and stewardship of the earth its mantle. We saw the wonder which is Chicago traffic and the impressive mall of America. I imagine a world where the march of progress would not be a continued taxation of existing people’s homes and lives. We visited Theodore Roosevelt and yipped along with the Prairie dogs. I imagined a great and diverse chorus singing praise to God with these animals. We visited Lake Como and Glacier National Park and felt the shocking cold of Mountain waters. I imagined our church shocking the community with our love, our hospitality, and our welcome. Everywhere we looked there was beauty, there was serenity, and there was God. Everywhere we go there is God who is with us and prompting us, as our founding fathers, to imagine and create a better tomorrow.
